Leather Dice Cups and Backgammon Boards, Made by Hand

Long before card cases and laptop sleeves, leatherworkers made dice cups. A shaken cup is the fairest way to throw dice, and the satisfying thud of leather on wood is half the pleasure of games like backgammon and the dice games played in bars. A good cup is a small, honest object that shows off a maker's skill.

How a dice cup is made

Most leather cups are made from a rectangle of firm vegetable-tanned leather, wet-formed around a wooden mould and stitched up the side with a saddle stitch. A round base is stitched or glued in. Inside, the cup is often ribbed or lined with a lip, so the dice tumble rather than slide out in the order they went in. The outside may be tooled, embossed or left plain to darken with use.

• Firm leather around 3 to 4 mm thick keeps the cup round.
• A stitched seam outlasts glue, especially on a cup that gets slammed on a table.
• A lip or ribs inside make the roll properly random.
• Felt on the base keeps it quiet and kind to the board.

Backgammon boards

Backgammon is one of the oldest board games still played, and boards range from folding vinyl cases to inlaid wooden masterpieces such as Persian khatam marquetry. Leather-covered boards are a classic of English and Italian makers, with the playing field in felt or cork and the points inlaid in contrasting leathers.

The doubling cube

The game changed for good in the 1920s, when players in New York clubs began using a doubling cube. Either player may offer to double the stakes; the other must accept or concede. The cube turned backgammon into a game of nerve as much as skill and made it a staple of money play in clubs and later in casino tournaments.

Other cup games

Cups are also used for liar's dice and for the bar dice games played across the American Midwest, where a round of drinks often depends on a shake. Casino craps is the exception: dice there are thrown by hand against a rubber-studded wall, and the dice themselves are precision-made, with sharp edges and serial numbers. We look at that kind of precision in our feature on the roulette wheel.

A leather cup takes on a patina faster than almost any other leather good, because it is handled, shaken and banged on a table every game. Ten years in, a good one looks better than it did new.